I hope that the "Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971" would come into play here. I haven't been able to find a copy online (don't really know where to look; Google isn't being that helpful) so don't know for sure. I will phone trading standards and see if they can fill me in.

To me the situation we face with ParcelForce is exactly the same as if you had a garden, and one day while you were out, a gardener came around and did it up, without you asking them to, and when you return, expecting you to pay for it. In that case I would not expect the gardener to be able to enforce payment, and similarly I find it difficult to believe that ParcelForce should be able to enforce payment for their unsolicited service.

It's easier and more relevant to read sections 104, 105 and 106 of the Postal Services Act 2000, it is on the web.

Section 105 allows Royal Mail to charge for services. Section 104 and 105 seem to state that the parcel cannot be held ransom for payment of those services and that the only resource for Royal Mail to recover their charges is civil action.

My only argument is that they are holding the parcel to ransom and not giving people the opportunity to dispute their charges.

You have a right not to pay your Council Tax, you have a right not to pay your self employed income tax, the council or government will take action against you but you still have a right to dispute it. Royal mail have taken that right away by holding your parcel until you pay their charges.

As earlier stated, I have received info in writing from Customs and PostComm are waiting for Royal Mail to respond to their legal challenge, we will know very soon whether they are breaking the law.

 

With regards to the posting about you changing your sign off - - - - I think it is rediculous as you appear on the side as Landshark.

I have been reading a few of your replies to various people and I find you quite knowledgeable - you come across that way anyway ;-)

Jules

Hello again,

I have been told yesterday by Sean O'Hara (Post Comm) that Royal Mail have not provided legislation that allows them to hold packets in lien for their clearance fees. PostComm is sympathetic with my view that our right to pay import duties directly to Customs has been taken away and is approaching Post Watch about an on-line payment system.

It seems that Royal Mail are so desperate to cover their arses and not be found guilty until the last possible moment, they now want to see the original written notes of the relevant sections of the Postal Services Act 2000 to see if anything has been left out or misinterpreted. Their lawyers are clutching at straws.

In my view, and with regard to the current situation where Royal Mail cannot provide evidence that they are holding packets in lien legally, they should notify all depot staff to hand over packets to disgruntled customers immediately, if they refuse to do this, they are putting their staff in danger of prosecution.

Sean O'Hara has also told me the only way to enforce the Act is for me (or any other individual) to seek a criminal prosecution through the Crown Prosecution Service, I will be making my statement to the police on Tuesday.

If this has happened to you and you want to prosecute, please let me know

Mark 

 

 

Last night at 7:00pm I attended Lakeside Police Station, Swansea, and made my statement for criminal action against the depot worker and Parcelforce PLC.

I suggest that anyone interested in fighting for their right to dispute the clearance fee should try and pay their VAT (not the clearance fee) at the depot, then call the police who will act as witnesses in the impending prosecution.

You will then have to request that your local constabulary support a criminal prosecution of the employee and parcelforce under sections 83, 84, 104 and 105 of the Postal Services Act 2000. If they need to reference the prosecution, please ask them to phone PC Tom Richardson at Lakeside Police Station, Swansea.

Good luck,

Mark 
 

Mark,

Thank you for your hard work on this issue.  Somebody had to make a stand!

I have been researching the problem because I recently got stung when I ordered some t-shirts from the USA - I just couldn't believe the cheek of Royal Mail in applying their greedy clearance fee.  I phoned their customer service phone line (because their website is utterly useless and they try to make it as difficult as possible to find out anything important), using a local number that I found on the internet so that I didn't have to use a national-rate number, HA!  Anyway, that didn't do much good because the employee I spoke to on the phone just stated the obvious to me, unconvincingly I might ad: that the clearance fee is charged for the administration of the customs duty fee, blah blah blah.  When I asked him for a break-down of the clearance fee, he didn't really have any idea took my address and email for them to contact me with an answer that, of course, never arrived.

 
Trading Standards, Consumer Direct, Citizens Advice etc didn't know what I was talking about.

 
So I am very glad that you have got to the bottom of this problem, especially since I am planning on purchasing more goods from outside the UK soon.  A few questions though... does all of this apply to Royal Mail as well?  If I get a card saying I need to go and pay the fees before I can get my item, can I demand that they deliver it and I pay on my doorstep? If I go to my local Royal Mail depot to collect a parcel/package and they ask me for the VAT/Customs Duty/Clearance Fee, and I offer to pay everything except the Clearance Fee, what should happen next?  What should I expect them to do regarding the unpaid fee, if I decide not to pay it - will I get stung with an increased fee later on?  What if the employee at the counter doesn't know what I'm going on about?  What if he or she refuses to give me my item?  I'm a bit reluctant to call the police since it's hardly a pressing issue for them...

I look forward to hearing more about the online payment system for Customs - should be interesting to see how the postal services react!

Thanks again for your diligence and courage, it is certainly appreciated here.

B
 

My last post above is what you must do and yes, it applies to all courier companies, especially Royal Mail.

In my opinion they should deliver it and demand the fees at the door but I know that would be logistically impossible as many recipients would not be home. 

You MUST call the police, this is a criminal offence, not a civil matter. After the police (witnesses) have gone, you must insist they take criminal action, details are in the last post.

Phone the head office of the CWU (Communication Workers Union) in London and explain that you are taking criminal action against one of their employees. I have already told them about the case so they should contact the employee and tell them to release the parcel.

If you still cannot get your parcel, take a witness with you and collect the parcel and point out that you are being forced to pay the clearance fee against your will and against sections 83, 84, 104 and 105 of the Postal Services Act. The witness will then have to make a statement to the police as well. 

Hope this helps 

 

P.S. You asked whether they could charge you a higher fee later, I presume you mean if you got away with not paying the charge.

That's easy - if they initially refused to give you the parcel unless you paid the clearance fee, they have broken criminal law. If they took civil action against you to recover the debt of the clearance fee, you could take criminal action against them, so it is unlikely they would. Any civil action to recover their fee would be delayed until the criminal action had been settled, and as they would be found guilty, they would have been demanding money under criminal duress and would lose the civil action by default.

If, on the other hand, they hand over the parcel without demanding the fee is paid first, they are entitled to take you to small claims court to recover their fee, but they will have to send out several letters first.

This whole process is about fighting for the right to pay our own Duty to Customs without a middleman charging £8.00 to £13.50 to press a button on their pc. My proposal, which is being backed by PostComm, is that there should be a direct on-line payment system that is free, and a telephone or postal payment system that carries a charge.

I think you've misunderstood this a little, Shark.

 I've been having an independent go at ParcelFarce about this over the last week or so, and stumbled on this tonight by chance.  The point is that the delay does not happen before clearance, but afterwards. HMCR clear the parcel, having applied any Duty and/or VAT; they will bill ParcelFarce for it.  The parcel is then released to ParcelFarce for delivery. It is no longer bonded.  It then goes to the delivering depot, which is also not a bonded premise.  THAT is where it is delayed, intentionally, till you stump up, and that, is where the offence is committed. 

As it happens, I'm having a go at them not because of their rip-off and unjustifiable charges, but because of the delay. Invariably, the situation for me is this (I'm just choosing Monday as a random start day)

Monday - parcel arrives in the UK

Monday evening - parcel clears Customs and starts its journey to the delivering Depot.

Tuesday morning - parcel arrives at delivering depot; it SHOULD be deliverable that day.

Tuesday - the ParcelFarce hub sends out the ransom letter.

Thursday - although it's sent first class, it invariably takes two days (perhaps they are posted late)

Thursday - I call and pay the charge by credit card, the minute I receive the letter. They tell me it'll not be delivered till Friday because the deliveries for that day left the depot early that morning.

Friday - the parcel I have been urgently waiting for arrives, 3 days later than it could have if they were not wilfully delaying it.

Now, if you shift all that forward to starting on a Tuesday, you'll see I don't get it till the next Monday, i.e. five days later than it could, and should, have been delivered.

At no point can the delay be blamed on HMCR, so your post is, I'm afraid, completely off track.

Now I, like everyone else, have no difficulty with paying the VAT and Duty; I'd even very grudgingly pay their rip-off clearance fee of £13.50.  BUT - only if they turn up with it on the doorstep and ask me to pay, as they used to.  

By the way, they claim that the Ransom Note system is what the vast majority of their customers prefer!  I suggested that that was being a little fanciful, and got ths response by email today:

"Also I would advise that the charge advice notification letters ARE the preferred method for the great majority of our customers. I would not advise this if it were untrue, however, we do have to acknowledge that it is impossible to please every single customer all of the time, of which you are one of a thankful minority who feels this is not best practice."

I believe that the practice of holding the parcel to ransom in this way is illegal, especially in Scotland, where I suspect the law would see it in the same way as private car clamping (illegal here).  Next time I get a charged parcel, I'll head on off to the depot to collect, and offer to pay only the VAT and Duty, and if they refuse to hand it over on that payment alone, I'll call the police.

Saturday received a "ransom note" - from the PO this time - being duty and £8.00 clearance fee.

So, this morning, I took myself off to the delivery office and asked for my parcel, offering to pay only the duty, but not the clearance fee. I pointed out that in my opinion they were committing a crime, in direct contravention of the Postal Services Act 2000 Sections 83, 84, 104, and 105, and that they were not entitled to retain my package by virtue of a lien.

"No payment, no package".

Did he want to see the legislation?

Nope.

Did he want to call anyone for advice?

Nope.

"In which case, I will have to call the police."

"Go right ahead, here's the number!"

So I did, and having had to persist to get through to an inspector, and then having to insist that no, I was NOT wasting police time, a sergeant called upon me this afternoon to take my statement.

I think it unlikely that I'll make much headway, with the attitude of the inspector "You are objecting to the working practices of a national organisation!" (No, I'm objecting to them apparently breaking criminal law.)

- But I feel better for having made my stand. It was a fairly painless exercise, and if I can encourage more of you to do the same, the groundswell may grow, and Royal Mail may yet be brought to book for flouting the law of the land in such arrogant style.

Bert

hello i am in the same situation parcel force want me to pay £8.19 in vat which i am happy to pay as its the law but they want me to pay £13.50 in parcel force clearance fee which i told them i am not now there holding my parcel but i am worried they are going to send it back to seller the police told me to contact parcel force complaints department i have done that and contacted postcomm just waiting on replies any advice that’s not already been mentioned in this post would be a great help

Thank you

The police are wrong to tell you to contact Parcel Farce complaints department. By holding on to your parcel, they are committing a criminal offence under the Postal Services Act. The info is all in this thread; you should contact the police again and stand your ground.

hello i have now decided to pay the charges online and i have 14 days to charge back the amount with my credit card then when parcel force contact me i will tell them im happy to pay the vat just not the fee lol otherwise they can take me to court


thank you

Let us know how you get on!

update the parcel could not be delivered as the new tracking number covered my address just been on phone to parcelforce and told them to redeliver to the post office tomorrow postcomm got back to me and they sent the standard email

thank you